A manufactured crisis with real consequences: Millions stand to lose healthcare and reproductive freedom as extremists in Congress prolong the shutdown.
This is not governing—it’s sabotage, carried out at the expense of Americans’ health and freedoms.
In July, House Republicans created a healthcare crisis when they rammed through a budget that gutted Medicaid, defunded Planned Parenthood and put a target on the Affordable Care Act. Now, instead of fixing the mess they made, they’re steering us toward a government shutdown that will only compound the damage.
This isn’t just partisan chaos. These reckless decisions will put millions of families at risk.
When Medicaid is slashed, it’s seniors who lose nursing home coverage, children who lose doctors’ visits and working parents who lose access to care they rely on every single day.
When Planned Parenthood is defunded, people lose access to cancer screenings, birth control, prenatal care and STI treatment.
When ACA protections are rolled back, costs rise and coverage shrinks.
These are life-and-death consequences, and they fall hardest on low-income families, women, communities of color and rural Americans who already struggle to access care.
Medicaid, Planned Parenthood and the ACA are lifelines in red states and blue states alike.
Clear-eyed about what’s at stake, Democrats have put forward plans to repeal the Medicaid cuts, restore funding for Planned Parenthood and permanently extend enhanced ACA subsidies that help families afford health insurance. These are commonsense steps to keep people healthy and keep the government open. But Congress remains deadlocked.
Let’s be honest about what’s happening here: Republicans are using the budget process to advance an agenda that undermines reproductive and healthcare rights—policies that voters have rejected again and again. They know abortion bans are wildly unpopular. They know Americans want more healthcare, not less. So instead of passing a straightforward abortion ban, they’re trying to smuggle restrictions into must-pass funding bills and weaponizing executive action to defund providers, attack medication abortion and deny emergency care for patients in crisis. It’s a backdoor strategy, but the goal is the same: End abortion access nationwide.
This strategy is as cynical as it is cruel. Now that the government has shut down, those who pushed for these cuts bear responsibility for the fallout: federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay, families cut off from food assistance and even more delays for people who rely on Medicaid.
What makes this even more frustrating is that Americans across the political spectrum value these programs. Medicaid, Planned Parenthood and the ACA are lifelines in red states and blue states alike. People may disagree on politics, but they overwhelmingly agree that their families deserve access to affordable healthcare. That’s why the position to protect care and keep the government open is both the responsible path forward and the popular one.
The stakes extend even beyond healthcare. If Republicans succeed in ramming through cuts under the guise of fiscal policy, it sets a dangerous precedent. Our freedoms, our privacy and our democracy itself are bargaining chips. Already, we’re seeing efforts to roll back HIPAA protections and empower government surveillance of people suspected of having abortions. We’re seeing politicians tell hospitals they can deny lifesaving emergency care. These attacks all fit together, and they are all about control.
Congress should reject these partisan attacks outright. No backroom deal, no continuing resolution, no so-called compromise should trade away Americans’ healthcare or reproductive freedom. The American people didn’t ask for this manufactured crisis, and they shouldn’t have to pay the price for it.
Great Job Mini Timmaraju & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
